Walker revises UW budget, calls for tuition freeze

May 15, 2013

Written by

Scott Bauer

Associated Press

MADISON – Gov. Scott Walker submitted a revised budget for the University of Wisconsin System on Wednesday that calls for freezing tuition over the next two years and imposing additional spending cuts in light of news the university has a $650 million surplus.

The change in Walker’s budget proposal was outlined in a letter from Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch to the Republican co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.

Walker had been saying for weeks that he would be revising UW’s budget and calling for a tuition freeze. What wasn’t known was how much of his original $181 million spending increase for UW he would take back.

Walker’s new plan calls for cutting that increase by about $94 million. Walker has said that money would now be available for other uses, such as K-12 education or deeper income tax cuts. It would add to the state’s budget surplus, which currently sits at about $500 million.

The Legislature’s budget committee is in the process of voting on changes to Walker’s proposal before sending it to the full Legislature for consideration. It has not yet taken up UW’s budget but will do so in the coming weeks.

“We share the governor’s interest in keeping college affordable and tuition low,” UW System President Kevin Reilly said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

“While UW tuition is already lower than many peer colleges and universities, a two-year tuition freeze will send the right message to Wisconsin students and families.”

Freezing tuition for two years, instead of raising it 2 percent each year as Reilly proposed, would amount to a $42 million loss in revenue. Walker also is calling for $65.7 million in spending cuts the university had previously been exempted from making.

Additionally, Walker is no longer proposing giving new money to pay for $28.6 million in economic development programs at the university. Instead, that money would have to come from their own reserves.

In total, paying for those three changes would lower the university’s reserves by $136 million, the letter said.

“These revisions present UW System with an opportunity to scrutinize its processes, programs, finances and operations so that in the future, tuition will not be accumulated for special projects under the cloak of maintaining a favorable reserve ratio,” Huebsch said in the letter.

UW’s reserves grew at the same time that it raised tuition 5.5 percent annually since the 2007-2008 academic year. Of the university’s reserves, about $414 million was surplus tuition.